Hotel sales and marketing teams are juggling more than ever. One moment, you're responding to a flood of group inquiries. The next, you're chasing down corporate transient contracts, all while trying to keep direct bookings flowing.
What if you could take the manual, time-consuming tasks off your plate and focus on what truly drives revenue? Automating hotel sales and marketing isn’t about replacing people—it’s about empowering your team to work smarter, close deals faster, and capture more high-value bookings across leisure, group, and transient segments.
In this blog, we’ll break down seven powerful ways automation helps you save time, boost revenue, and create a smoother sales process—without adding more to your to-do list.
What is hotel sales and marketing automation?
Hotel sales and marketing automation is any technology that streamlines the sales process. It helps hotels manage leads, respond to inquiries, update pricing, follow up with prospects, and close deals more efficiently. Instead of manually handling every task, automation takes care of the repetitive work, so your team has more time to build relationships and secure bookings.
Imagine this: A new group inquiry comes in. While you’re still drafting an email response, your competitor—who uses request for proposal (RFP) automation software—has already sent a personalized proposal and locked in the deal. Meanwhile, a high-value corporate lead slips through the cracks because you didn’t have time to follow up. This is where automation makes all the difference.
The best part about automation is that it works across all sales segments. Smart sales automation tools help you move faster, personalize outreach, and drive more leisure, group, and transient revenue without adding to your workload.
Why automate hotel sales? The business impact
Managing leads, responding to RFPs, following up with prospects, adjusting pricing—it all takes time. And when things get busy, opportunities slip through the cracks. Sales and marketing automation helps you handle repetitive tasks so you can focus on closing deals. It also makes winning deals a whole lot easier.
Consider this: The latest North American Edition of the Cvent Planner Sourcing Report revealed that most planners (80%) want responses to their RFPs in four days or less. Twenty percent of planners said they thought hotels could speed up their turnaround time and 22% said hotels could do a better job at customizing their proposals. This is where RFP automation, for example, helps you meet planner expectations.
Here’s how automation makes an impact:
Saves time: No more copying and pasting emails or manually tracking leads. Automation speeds up responses, follow-ups, and pricing updates.
Boosts revenue: Faster response times mean more won deals. Plus, automated upselling helps increase per-booking spend.
Improves guest experience: Personalized emails, instant RFP replies, and smooth booking processes keep customers happy.
And it works across all sales segments:
Leisure: Automated booking engines (such as online travel agencies like Booking.com) suggest room upgrades and package deals to maximize revenue.
Groups: Faster RFP responses and digital contracts make booking large events easier.
Transient: AI-powered CRM tools nurture corporate leads and secure repeat business.
The bottom line is less admin, more bookings, and higher revenue. Now, let’s look at the best ways to automate hotel sales.
7 powerful ways to automate hotel sales and marketing for more revenue and efficiency
The human connection will always be vital in hotel sales. Sales and marketing automation isn’t looking to replace face-to-face interaction. Instead, it’s about removing the tedious, time-consuming tasks that slow your team down.
Here’s how automation streamlines hotel sales, saves time, and boosts revenue across leisure, group, and transient segments.
1. Reach high-value prospects at the right time
Sales teams waste too much time chasing cold leads. Manually searching for event planners, corporate buyers, or high-spend leisure travelers is inefficient and often leads to missed revenue opportunities. Plus, rising sales targets make prospecting even more stressful.
Instead of struggling along, use AI-driven prospecting tools and let the best leads come to you. Here’s how it works:
Artificial intelligence scans historical booking data, web searches, and RFP trends to identify high-value prospects.
Predictive analytics score leads based on their likelihood to convert into bookings.
Response automation tools help you send personalized messages quickly, at key decision-making moments.
The Lodge at Flying Horse, for example, uses an AI prospecting tool called Planner Navigator to search for planners on the Cvent Supplier Network more proactively. Filters like organization type, location, and industry help the resort capture the right event planners for the property.
Here’s what the property’s Director of Sales and Marketing, Jeff Howell, had to say:
“Planner Navigator has brought me closer to clients, and it's taken so much of the work out of trying to find the right planner. It allows me to hone in on the best planners and those producing in our market. It's just such an easy tool for me to identify the appropriate contacts, and then to open the door on my own and build that relationship in a more personal manner.”
2. Route leads to the right salesperson automatically
The difference between winning and losing a sale often comes down to speed and accuracy. Twenty percent of event planners in North America struggle most with getting adequate responses to their RFPs by the due date. If a lead is misrouted, delayed, or ignored, the business goes elsewhere.
Automated lead routing ensures:
RFPs go to the right sales rep immediately—no manual sorting.
High-value leads get escalated if no action is taken within a set timeframe.
Leads are prioritized based on event size, urgency, and revenue potential.
Example: A VIP corporate event inquiry lands in a general inbox instead of the senior sales rep handling premium clients. With automation, the system recognizes the event's high value and instantly routes it to the correct team member. Faster responses = higher conversions.
3. Respond to your best leads first
Not all leads are created equal. Some RFPs will bring in massive revenue, while others aren’t worth the effort. So why treat them all the same? Not only that but the quality and speed of your response determines how likely you are to win the business.
RFP Response automation technology helps you qualify and submit proposals to your best leads first, confirm event space availability, and quickly evaluate alternative dates. This is especially helpful in larger event markets where competition is everything.
ARIA Resort and Casino in Las Vegas uses response automation technology to speed up response times and build relationships. Paul Buchheit, the hotel’s Executive Director of Sales tells us:
“In Las Vegas, we have a lot of properties vying for business. [Response automation] helps us ensure we are responding quickly, accurately, and effectively. Being able to respond to a lead as quickly as possible is a focus. It allows us to respond quickly with rates, dates, and space, and then follow up by building that relationship.”
4. Gain full visibility into all incoming RFPs
Hotel sales teams deal with RFPs from multiple sources—email, third-party platforms, and corporate clients. Without automation, it’s chaos. Instead, use an automated RFP visibility system to:
View all RFPs in one centralized dashboard.
Track response times and proposal acceptance rates so you can flag and improve team performance.
Identify which channels bring in the highest-value leads.
RFP visibility systems work for above- and at-property sales teams. For multi-property hotels, RFP visibility systems give you access to all RFPs across properties flowing through the CSN and redistribute leads strategically. For sales teams, sales reps see which proposals are still pending, reducing lost opportunities.
Example: A hotel chain notices one property is overwhelmed with RFPs while another has availability. The system redistributes leads, ensuring every inquiry gets a fast response.
5. Use AI-powered visuals to sell the experience
Event planners want to see what their event will look like ahead of time but they’re also short on time. In other words, they want to experience your space without having to make site visits.
For 52% of planners, deciding whether to submit an RFP depends upon meeting room specifications, and for 47%, images and video. In addition, 19% of planners say hotels and venues could improve their RFP responses most by including diagrams and 17% say 3D or virtual tours.
Cvent Event Diagramming, for example, reduces diagramming time by up to 50%. This technology helps you:
Provide 3D virtual tours of event spaces.
Offer interactive floor plans that planners can customize collaboratively in real-time.
Generate instant, AI-driven event layouts based on attendee count and exact specifications.
Example: A wedding planner is considering two venues. One sends a generic PDF of their ballroom setup. The other sends an interactive event diagram with seating, lighting, and decor adjustments. They use the event diagramming tech to experiment with different setups. Which venue do you think wins the booking?
6. Automate room block management for maximum revenue
Managing room blocks manually is a logistical nightmare—spreadsheet tracking, countless emails, and lost revenue from unclaimed rooms. Here are a few benefits of automating room blocking:
Real-time inventory updates prevent overbooking.
Planners get instant access to room block pickup data.
Upsell opportunities—premium rooms, extended stays, and add-ons—are built into the system.
Example: In 2023, the Bellagio Hotel & Casino saw a net increase of $3.1 million via 65,000 reservations they received through Cvent Passkey. Here’s what Becky Liston, Associate Director of Sales for the Bellagio told us:
“Our group reservations department uses Passkey to create customized web pages for our planners. It alleviates some of the stress on the planner’s side. This is what’s attracting guests to enjoy the amenities and spend additional time at the property.”
7. Improve efficiency with smart integrations
Automation works best when your systems communicate. This is done through application programming interfaces (APIs). Smart integrations connect:
Customer relationship management (CRM) system to lead management (never lose a follow-up).
RFP system to revenue forecasting (know your sales pipeline).
Event planning tools to online booking engines (streamline the booking process).
Example: Connect your event diagramming software to your CSN profile and website to show event planners your library of event diagrams.
8. Streamline simple event bookings
Not every event requires a long, complex RFP process. For small meetings, VIP dining, and corporate workspaces, self-service booking is the way forward. Eighty-four percent of planners say they would select a venue for their simple meetings if the booking process was easy. These instant book tools provide planners with the following:
Real-time availability & pricing for meeting rooms.
Instant booking with secure online payment.
Automated follow-ups for additional services.
Example: A corporate client wants to book a private dining space for 15 people. Instead of waiting 48 hours for a response, they select, book, and pay within minutes—just like a hotel reservation.
9. Use real-time data to make smarter sales decisions
Hotel, venue, and CVB sales teams often rely on outdated data when setting strategy. And with market factors like weather events, the economy, and your competitors' performance, bad data might as well mean no data. In essence, it's a recipe for missed opportunities. AI-powered reporting tools analyze:
Which sales channels convert the fastest
Which pricing strategies maximize revenue
Which markets are driving the most leads
Example: A hotel notices a 20% increase in RFPs for corporate retreats. Instead of reacting late, the team adjusts rates, upsells premium packages, and wins more business before competitors catch on.
What will you automate first to win more leads and develop better client relationships?
Hotels that embrace automation aren’t just working faster. They’re working smarter. From AI-powered lead generation to instant booking, automation helps you sell more, win high-value business, and maximize efficiency. The future of hotel sales isn’t about doing more with less—it’s about doing more with automation. Ready to start?
Olivia Cal
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